The invention relates generally to additive manufacturing, and more particularly, to additive manufacturing anchors for joining different materials and for forming surface overlays.
Various manufactured products may incorporate components with different materials. As may be appreciated, the different materials of the manufactured products may be joined together by fasteners, mating geometries, welding, or other processes. Fasteners or complementary geometries may add components or weight to the joint. Heat input from welding components together may form a heat affected zone (HAZ) that affects properties of the joint, such as the strength or fatigue life. Undesirable phases or intermetallic structures may form from mixing incompatible base materials into a weld. Direct manufacturing (DM) processes may build up materials with an electron beam in a vacuum chamber. However, the vacuum chamber and electron beam may reduce the availability of DM processes for some products.